


out in the garden

by HonouraryWomanofLetters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Castiel is Jack Kline's Parent, Dean Winchester Lives, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Spoilers for Episode: s15e20 Carry On
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28276851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonouraryWomanofLetters/pseuds/HonouraryWomanofLetters
Summary: Jack bit his lip, looking every bit the young man he’d been on earth, about to tell his father something he really didn’t know how to say.“You should head down to Ohio. There’s a barn just east of Canton, two miles outside the town limits. Sam and Dean were on a hunt, and… well, I think Dean needs your help.”“Jack—” Cas started, but Jack interrupted, “I’d hurry, if you’re gonna go.”+In which Dean Winchester survives, and Castiel learns how to live.
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 154





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write something canon-compliant for post-15x20, but the episode made no sense so I couldn't do it. Here's a story in which life continues of earth, instead.

Once the work was done, Castiel found himself standing at the edge of a familiar dock, an empty chair and a fishing rod to his left. The view was beautiful, just as he remembered it from that walk through Dean’s dreams years ago, but it had lost something in translation; Castiel thought it had something to do with the empty chair.

He stood with hands in his pockets, watching the waves gently rock against the greying wood. He hadn’t meant to come here, or rather, to bring “here” to him. He’d just wanted to be somewhere he could be alone with his thoughts.

He’d had very few moments since being plucked from the Empty to think about anything other than the Great Work, or as Jack had called it, “Heaven 2.0.”

When Jack had strolled into the Empty and kneeled beside him, Castiel understood immediately that Jack had done what Cas always known he would. He’d saved them all.

He asked Cas to help him build paradise, to be the architect of an afterlife worthy of the souls in it. And so Castiel had designed it with the worthiest of souls in mind: Dean’s. Together, he and Jack dismantled the cells of Heaven, rearranging an endless range of possibility stretching infinitely out from the Garden in all directions. It would be a heaven grounded in the principles of free will, where each soul was free to do as they pleased, to see (or avoid) whomever they liked, to stay in stasis, or to grow.

It was a remarkable feat, a true act of creation the likes of which hadn’t been seen in millions of years. And to maintain it, a fleet of Heaven’s finest. Jack, in his new all-knowing wisdom, had plucked from the Empty all those who had fought on the side of freedom, those who could understand what it was that they were trying to accomplish here. Those that would love humanity, and the world, as they were meant to. For the rest of the Empty’s inhabitants, Jack granted peace at last. A dreamless, eternal slumber, free of torment. Even for the Shadow.

So it had been an exhausting few weeks, in all manner of ways. There was joy in being reunited with so many lost brothers and sisters, but also pain. Reckoning of past wrongs. When he’d fallen to his knees at Balthazar’s feet and wept tears of sorrow, his brother had raised him up, and gifted him with forgiveness. And as the angels worked together, building rather than destroying for the first time in far too long, the festering wound that had infected Heaven’s core began to heal.

And Jack—the boy who had only weeks ago bragged to Castiel that he could write his name in cursive, now he flitted through Heaven like he had been doing it his whole (admittedly short) life. Still, with Castiel, the boy was clear beneath the veneer of godliness. As he became more comfortable in his new powers, he seemed more and more like Jack, like his son. He told Cas that he wouldn’t ever return to earth, but that he wouldn’t abandon Heaven like Chuck had. He would be an ever-constant presence, and nothing here would ever stagnate as it had in Chuck’s absence. On earth, humans would continue to believe or not believe in a higher power, it was all the same to Jack, but in Heaven, they would know that they were loved. Life would still be hard, as it always had been, but the reward would finally be just.

To say that Castiel was proud of Jack would be a gross understatement. He had become more than Cas had believed possible, and was still _Jack_. He still asked Cas for advice, even asking his permission before making a few adjustments to his plans. When the angels called him “father”, he smiled and gestured to Cas. “That’s my father, I’m just Jack.” He spent time with Kelly, and occasionally Cas joined them, a different little family than the one Castiel typically occupied.

And now, with the work done, Castiel’s mind turned to thoughts of earth, which of course, revolved for him around Dean Winchester. He thought of the look in Dean’s eyes when he realized that this was the end, that Castiel was leaving for the last time, the mix of shock and despair that was his only response to Castiel’s confession. He didn’t blame Dean for his lack of verbosity. He was intimately aware of how Dean struggled to express himself, how he could never quite put into words the immense well of feeling that swirled within him. It was what he had missed most during his brief stint as a human, and during the periods where his grace was diminished. Without the brightness of Dean’s soul, the singing gravity that had anchored Castiel for over a decade, he felt lost.

He’d felt the pull of longing from Dean ‘til his last moment of consciousness before the Empty swallowed him whole. Castiel had known for a very long time that Dean needed him, _yearned_ for him, even. He’d led a tragic life. It was no surprise that for those he allowed access into the more intimate parts of his life, letting them go was a struggle. Dean was loyal, and he prized loyalty in turn. This was why, sometimes, when he let his guard down just a bit, he could tell Cas that he was important to him. He’d been loyal, and Dean needed that. So Cas had given it.

It was, admittedly, a sore spot for Castiel, one that many enemies had exploited over the years in a bid to get under his skin. Castiel as a tool, a weapon, a guardian, a burden, something to be used and discarded by the Winchesters as need be. And still, that bright patchwork of Dean’s soul, the troubled lines on his beautiful face, it was always enough for Cas, enough to ignore the harsh words, to not quite mind his role in Dean’s life. Usually he was glad to just have a role at all.

Now he stood at a crossroads. It had been hardly any time at all on earth since he had died. Two weeks. He hadn’t checked in on them yet, not quite ready to face that even with the benefit of invisibility, but he knew that they were okay, that they were trying to build lives for themselves in the aftermath of it all. And Jack had given him the option; he’d asked the angels to stay in Heaven as much as possible, since their new home required some angelic upkeep, and most were perfectly content to do so. But for Cas, Jack had sat down with him and given him a slightly different set of options.

“You’ll always have a place here with me,” Jack had said, “But you’ve earned the opportunity to live whatever life you choose. If you want to go back home, you can. You can stay there, you can come back, you can do whatever will make you happy. But choose because it will make you happy.”

Cas still hadn’t decided what to do with that. He _was_ happy, in a way. He had no more secrets weighing him down, no more anxieties or shame. He had his old family here, happier than they had ever been, and Jack to guide, to learn from. Even some of the human friends he’d known on earth, long since passed. He spent time with Bobby, telling him stories about the last few years of Dean and Sam’s lives, sharing a beer over the bar of the Roadhouse with Ellen and Jo, who traded stories about Ash’s heavenly escapades, shared thoughts about how this Heaven could operate. He'd visited Charlie, who told him about how she'd reunited with her family, and gently pestered him about why he wasn't back on earth yet.

Just before coming to this place, he’d walked along a long stretch of beach with Mary. He told her of his grief, of Jack’s grief, over her passing. Of how it had broken Sam, and shattered Dean. Of his guilt, his responsibility. To that, she’d shot him a look like he’d grown an extra head (Castiel quickly checked that he did, indeed, still appear to her as a human man, and not a multi-headed celestial form).

“How’d you get _there_?”

When Cas had only furrowed his brow in response, Mary continued.

“I know you like to take all the blame for everything that happens in the universe. Hell, it’s a trait we share. But how in the world are you managing to blame yourself for what happened?”

“It’s—I had an idea that something was wrong with Jack, and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t keep you away.”

“Cas. _I_ knew something was wrong with Jack. If you’d told me, “Jack’s unstable, don’t go near him,” do you really think that would have kept me away? I wanted to help him. It’s not your job to monitor everyone.”

“Well, it kind of was,” Cas replied, recalling all the times he’d been mocked as the Winchester’s guardian, their lap dog.

“Only because you decided it should be.”

Cas looked over at Mary, who was watching him with a softness in her eyes. Even when Dean was halfway to hating Mary, Castiel could never bring himself to feel anything but appreciation and sympathy for her. He hadn’t said as much to her, but he felt a certain affinity for her situation. A being supplanted into a life that she didn’t fully understand, with people and responsibilities she couldn’t comprehend. He sometimes thought that she felt the same way about him, that despite being a different species, they shared a challenging role as outsiders to Sam and Dean’s life that united them.

“Dean blamed me,” Castiel found himself saying. He wasn’t sure why he said it, he’d always tried to diminish the emotional complexities of his relationship with Dean in discussions with Mary. But Mary didn’t seem phased.

“Well, Dean’s a hothead. And people… People tend to put the most blame, the most pain, on the people they love the most. The people they know won’t leave, even if they throw everything they’ve got at them.”

Castiel hesitated for a moment. “I did. Leave.” He didn’t look at her face, not wanting to see any betrayal in light of his abandonment of her son.

“Me too. Castiel,” she stopped walking, put her hand on his arm and looked him in the eye. “You can’t always take care of everyone else. Sometimes you need to take care of yourself. Otherwise you’ll have nothing left to give.”

Castiel looked down at her hand resting on the sleeve of his jacket.

“Yeah, I've started to get that, recently. I’m not… human, but I’ve started to understand the human condition is something of a balancing act. I haven’t quite perfected it yet.”

“Maybe you’ll have a chance to get there,” Mary smiled, and they resumed walking, a twinkle in her eye. “Jack told me that you might go back.”

“And you think I should?”

Mary shrugged. “That’s up to you. But if you do, don’t give yourself a job that makes you miserable. Be your own person. Take some risks, of a non-apocalyptic nature. Be true to yourself. I think that could be a positive influence on some people.”

Cas shot her a look, but Mary was looking out at the ocean, a thoughtful look on her face.

“And by some people, you mean…?”

Mary smiled at him again and took his hand in hers, squeezing lightly. The beach melted away, and they were on the porch of a cheerful house, a replica of her home in Lawrence.

She stretched up to place a kiss against his forehead and cradled his face with one hand. “I’m glad to have you in my family, Castiel. I know you’ll make the right choice.”

Castiel had never had a mother, but it struck him as a very mom-thing to say.

She patted his face, and walked into the house, leaving Castiel to wander until he found himself on the dock.

 _The right choice._ Snippets of past conversations echoed in his mind. His voice, hesitant and honest: _I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore._ And Dean’s voice, thick with anger: _There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it._ Twelve years later and he was still struggling with the same question.

There was a time when this wouldn’t have been a question at all. He would have chosen to be at Dean’s side in any capacity possible. But now… he’d finally felt happy, he had finally expressed his deepest truth, and he was scared that if he went back, he’d need to shove it away again. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be Dean’s friend if that’s all Dean could ever offer. He would never try to get more from Dean than what Dean could provide. But if Dean couldn’t accept his truth or couldn’t see him as he had before, if this had indeed ruined Dean’s ability to be friends at all… That was a reality he wasn’t willing to face.

And more than that, he wanted Dean to be able to move on, to live a normal life, and could he ever do that with Castiel there, drawing him into his traumatic past, presenting another burden for him to carry, another supernatural obstacle in the path of his future? Castiel knew that just as it was for him, it was difficult for Dean to live for himself. He needed to give Dean a chance to do that, didn’t he?

He still hadn’t come to a decision when a whoosh of wind told him that he had company. Jack’s arrival wasn’t signified by the usual flutter of angel wings (a common sound now that their wings had been restored), but a general displacement of air, as time and space moved around him.

Cas turned to greet him, expecting Jack to be hosting his usual serene look. Instead, he was immediately alarmed to see that Jack looked nervous, concerned.

“Jack? What’s wrong?”

Jack bit his lip, looking every bit the young man he’d been on earth, about to tell his father something he really didn’t know how to say.

“Uhh… Okay so, I know I said hands off, and I wanted you to make this choice yourself without any outside influences, but I also think you’d find it insane if I didn’t tell you this and let you do what you’ll want to do… So. I think I’ll tell you?” He still looked unsure, like he was hoping Cas would have the answer to a question he hadn’t been made privy to yet.

He seemed to take his cue from Cas’ exasperated expression.

“You should head down to Ohio. There’s a barn just east of Canton, two miles outside the town limits. Sam and Dean were on a hunt, and… well, I think Dean needs your help.”

“Jack—” Cas started, but Jack interrupted, “I’d hurry, if you’re gonna go.”

Castiel took off in a frantic flurry of wings, leaving Jack alone on the dock.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I meant to post this before Christmas, so to make up for it, I made this one a bit longer than planned. Enjoy some Dean-narration to begin, because I really needed to make sense of that awful barn speech.
> 
> Warning for brief reference to past suicidal behaviour.

Dean was dying. He could feel his life draining out of him, pooling on the filthy hay-strewn ground beneath his feet. And still, he struggled against the pull of unconsciousness.

It felt wrong, after everything.

This wasn’t how he was supposed to go.

But right til the end, he had to comfort his brother, make this make sense for him if no one else. So he told Sam that this was how it was always meant to go, that he wasn’t made for a life _after_ , a life beyond the trauma and pain and loss that they’d lived in for so long.

And the thing was, that Dean had believed that, just a few short years ago. But since then, he'd really started to think it could be different. That _he_ could be different. And he’d been trying— _Fuck,_ he’d been trying. Even with Cas gone, even with long nights spent sleepless, buried in lore, looking for a way to get him out, to bring him home, he’d gone through all the motions. Made himself act out having a life, hoping that maybe one day it wouldn’t be an act. That one day he’d just be the person Cas thought he was, that he could earn that praise.

And now he was at the end, and he realized that he’d failed. Cas thought he was good, but he was still the same grunt he’d always been. Still hunting down vampires, still willing to torture to get what he wanted. He remembered a flash of a different life, a world that hadn’t come to be. _We’re torturing again. That’s good—classy._ And a different Cas, smiling, _I like past you_. Hadn’t he become that broken version of himself anyway? That angry, damaged person? He’d vowed to change it, but here he was, not two weeks later, having slid right back into old patterns, and dying before he could correct the course.

He tried to be present, to be there as he said goodbye, as words slipped out of his mouth, senseless and meandering, but his mind felt foggy, the pain radiating through him, making him feel sick, weak, his weight held up on legs that were past ready to give way. And in the end, he let himself be selfish, just once with his little brother, to say something for himself, instead of whatever he thought might comfort Sam.

“Tell me it’s okay.”

He couldn’t see anymore, his vision completely blacked out. But as he slipped into unconsciousness, he thought he heard a sound that he hadn’t heard in years. A rustling of wings.

+

Castiel landed in the barn and took in the scene in a fraction of a second. The headless bodies strewn on the ground, blood and dirt and gore everywhere. The rickety frame of the structure, the shoddy construction. And a tragic vignette, a dying man clutching onto his brother for dear life.

“Sam, move,” Castiel ordered, shoving the weeping man roughly to the side. There would be time for a happier reunion later.

Sam gasped as he stumbled aside. “Cas—Cas, you’re here! Cas, Dean—”

“I know,” Castiel was already reaching behind Dean’s slumped form, feeling the warm, sick wetness where the rebar had impaled him. Dean’s eyes were closed, his face lax and pale, but he was still there, just. That brilliant flicker of his soul still burned, and Cas thought it might even be reacting to his presence, leaping slightly, reigniting before he even had a chance to heal him.

He placed his hand against Dean back, around the rebar, and hauled Dean’s limp body up and off as quickly as possible. The squelching noise it made was horrific, and Dean, even in his state, let out a shuddering breath, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

As the rebar slid free, Cas covered the wound with his hand and pushed his grace into Dean’s body, healing it from the inside out, Dean’s head slumped on his shoulder.

He knew it had worked before Dean gave any indication that he was restored. Castiel could see the way his soul re-rooted itself into his body, sang out in thanks, in love.

He gently lowered Dean to the ground, and Sam was beside him, needlessly catching Dean’s side and supporting him in a slumped kneel.

“Did it work? Cas why isn’t he awake?”

Cas breathed out a gentle “Shhhh,” and placed his hand, covered in blood, against Dean’s cheek.

Dean awoke was a trembling gasp, his eyes flying open and his chest expanding and contracting rapidly.

“Dean!” Sam yelled, his desperation turning to astounded joy.

Dean’s eyes were wild, unseeing.

“Sam—” he began, his voice still weak, but he didn’t turn to his left to see his brother. His eye’s focused on the figure before him.

Cas was still holding Dean’s face, cradling it gently as he crouched in front of the man who had reshaped his life.

“C-Cas,” Dean gasped. “Cas. Cas,” he said his name like a litany.

“I’m here, Dean, I’ve got you.”

“Cas.”

Cas could see that Dean was returning to himself, his mind catching up to his body’s rapid recovery. He removed his hand from the side of Dean’s face.

“How—how are you here. Is this heaven?” He looked over at Sam. “Sam—this is—we’re in the barn?”

Sam was too overcome to speak, he just let out a watery laugh, roughly wiping a hand across his face.

“This isn’t heaven, Dean,” Cas replied. “Heaven has far fewer vampire corpses laying around.”

Dean let out a shaky exhale that was somewhere between a laugh and a yelp.

“You—Cas, how can you be here? I couldn’t—I couldn’t find a way. I didn’t do it.”

Castiel smiled gently at him, as he and Sam raised Dean back to his feet.

“Jack needed some help in Heaven. I’ve been assisting in the rebuild.”

“Assisting—you—” Dean blinked and shook his head. “This is gonna take a minute.”

Impatience getting the better of Sam, he pulled his brother into a tight hug.

“You were gone. Dean, you were gone.”

“It’s okay, Sammy. I’m okay.” Dean kept his eye locked on Cas as he returned his brother’s hug, as if afraid that if he blinked, Cas might disappear.

“The boys, where are the kids?” Dean asked, looking around then.

“I’ll find them,” Cas said, taking off just as Dean opened his mouth to protest.

He could feel Dean’s panic as he found the boys in the field, and he quickly flew them home. He hesitated for a moment before blurring their memories of the past day. He didn’t feel right about altering memories, but there was no need for the boys to remember the sharp terror of the past 24 hours with acute recall. They were only children, and Castiel knew intimately the kind of damage that trauma of this nature could cause to a young mind.

When he returned to the barn, Dean and Sam were standing by the car, where a furry beast was happily hanging its head out the window.

It looked like Sam had regained some composure, but Dean was tense, eyes darting around the dark landscape.

When he heard Cas’ arrival, he turned to him. His face was stormy. He looked remarkably energized for someone who’d been on the brink of death minutes before.

“So you got your wings back too, huh? Great. That’s great.”

He didn’t make it sound great.

“Jack restored them,” Cas said, feeling cautious and slightly irritated, the way he always felt when Dean got into a mood like that. He braced for a fight. Not a physical one—they rarely got into those kinds of fights anymore. But for the kind that drained him, that filled him up with fire and then left him empty inside.

“Dean—” Sam started, clearly getting ready to play mediator. Cas felt a twinge of sympathy for him. It had been over a decade of Sam acting as a buffer between them.

“I’m fine, Sam,” he said gruffly, in a tone that implied _back off_.

For a moment, none of them spoke.

Then Dean swallowed a few times, and turned his head to the side, looking as if he was fighting against something inside himself. Cas watched as his jaw clenched and unclenched rapidly.

Then Dean took a few steps forward and wrapped Cas into a tight embrace.

Cas could feel the way Dean’s soul reached out to his grace, the way he shook, just slightly, against him. He wrapped his arms around Dean instinctually, clutching at the place that had so recently been a tattered hole through his body.

“Stay,” Dean said, somewhere between a plea and a command, his head hooked over Cas’s shoulder.

Cas pulled back to look Dean in the eye.

“Is that what you want?”

Dean clenched his jaw again, searching Cas’ eyes. “Is it what _you_ want?”

The answer still stuck in his throat. He could sense that this request had cost Dean something. For Cas, it was the same thing he had struggled with on the dock.

It wasn’t a lie when he replied “yes,” but it wasn’t the whole truth either. But for now, with Dean looking so utterly wrecked, it was what he could offer.

Dean swallowed again, raising his hand to graze through the hair behind Cas’ ear.

“Me too,” Dean brushed his thumb over the hinge of Cas’ jaw. “Me too.”

+

They stopped for the night just before reaching Illinois. Sam had been yawning loudly for the last hour, and Cas could tell that Dean was spent as well, even though his body still contained a tenseness that staved off sleep as he drove for hours.

As they entered the motel room, Dean directed Sam to hit the shower first, which Sam only protested half-heartedly. Miracle curled up by the table, laying his fluffy head on his paws as Dean placed food and water dishes by the door.

As the water shrieked to life behind the closed bathroom door, Dean and Cas stood in silence for several long moments, until Dean sighed and sat on the edge of one of the beds, removing his shoes.

“I know you don’t sleep now, and all, but. You’ll stay?” Dean asked again, not meeting his gaze.

“I’ll watch over you,” Cas replied. The tips of Dean’s ears burned red, and he remembered a reply to that same offer, years ago. _That is not happening._

Now, though, Dean just nodded. “Good.”

When Sam was finished, he crashed on the bed furthest from the door and fell asleep almost instantly, his breath evening out, and his fingers limp around his phone.

As Dean showered, Cas gently pried the phone out of Sam’s grasp and laid it on the bedside table beside him. The screen lit up with a text. Eileen, saying _Glad you’re all safe, call me tomorrow <3 goodnight._

Cas placed an extra blanket from the closet over Sam, and settled in the chair by the empty bed, reaching down to scratch behind Miracle’s ear. The dog had taken an immediate liking to Cas, laying his head in his lap while they drove through the night.

Dean’s eyes immediately met his as he exited the bathroom, running a towel over his damp hair and looking ridiculously beautiful in a black t-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms. A hint of a smile crossed his face as he walked towards him, sitting at the edge of the bed so that there was only a foot of space between them.

“So,” Dean still looked a bit tense.

“So,” Cas repeated, sitting up straighter.

“You and Jack, you restored the big house, huh? Sounds like a, uh—big job.”

Cas nodded. “It was. Though it wasn’t just us. All the angels helped. Some humans too. Bobby had a lot of opinions about how it could be improved.”

Dean laughed slightly, looking fond. “Sounds like him.”

“I… I spoke with Mary, as well.”

Dean swallowed. “Oh yeah? She putting up with my old man okay?”

Cas tipped his head side to side like he was weighing something out, shrugging a shoulder slightly. “Nothing a few millennia of couples counselling can’t sort out.”

Dean laughed.

“They’re good, Dean. It’s better, there, now. I promise.”

Dean nodded solemnly, and Cas felt gratified that his word seemed to mean something to Dean.

“So when’d Jack pull you out?”

Cas hesitated, but told Dean the truth. “As soon as he left earth, right after everything happened with Chuck.” Dean’s expression tightened.

“And heaven, is it still under construction?” He asked, and there was something behind his question that Cas didn’t want to examine too closely.

“No,” he replied, “No, we’re finished.”

Dean had that look again, the same one he’d had outside the barn, when he’d struggled with himself before hugging Cas.

“So what, you were just waiting til I died to make your reappearance?”

Ah. That was it. Cas could tell that Dean was reigning in the more biting aspect of that question, working to keep it level despite the starkness of his words.

“It’s not that,” Cas matched his tone in evenness.

“Okay, so what? I’m not trying to be ungrateful, Cas. I’m glad your back, no matter what. But do you know what you put me through, what the last two weeks have been like? And you could have just popped down to let me know you were alright?”

“I—Jack told me that you’d started to make a life for yourself. Looking for a job, something normal. You know, I’ve been called many things, but normal isn’t one of them. I didn’t want to intrude, if you were making something good for yourself.”

Dean was staring at him with his mouth slightly open, his brow furrowed.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

There was no heat to it, but Cas huffed out an annoyed breath anyway. “It’s not _stupid_ to want you to have a happy life, Dean.”

“A happy life—Cas, how the hell was I supposed to have a happy life? God, I tried, I pulled every trick in the book,” he kept his voice low, the words grinding out, and Cas knew that he’d be shouting if he wasn’t trying so hard to keep calm. “I said all the right crap about living for those we lost, I made my bed in the morning, I ate so much goddamn pie I almost puked. And what’d that get me? Death by nail in some goddamn barn with _nothing_ to show for all the bullshit.”

“Besides the nail, how could I have helped with any of that, Dean? I can’t _make_ you be happy, no matter how many times I heal you.”

“ _What are you talking about?_ ” Dean whispered through gritted teeth. “Of course you could have made me happy, you being gone is _why_ I was unhappy in the first place, you fucking idiot.”

Cas narrowed his eyes at Dean but didn’t say anything, trying to process what Dean was saying.

“Goddamnit, Cas, do you know what that was like for me? Trying to live a life, and trying to get you back, and feeling like I was failing at both. Fuck.”

“No,” Cas said at last, choosing his words carefully. “No, I don’t know what that was like for you. I—didn’t know my absence would affect you so strongly.”

“What?” Dean looked genuinely flabbergasted. “That’s bullshit, I know you know what I was like the last time you died. I almost _killed_ myself, Cas.”

Cas dragged his tongue along his bottom lip, hating the thought of Dean in pain, of Dean seeing death as a way out.

“You had…lost your mother, you thought she was dead.”

“Can you stop telling me how I goddamn feel?”

Cas shut his mouth, and Dean closed his eyes, gathering himself before opening them and meeting Cas’ eyes.

“How is it that you’re back for two goddamn minutes and we’re already fighting,” Dean let out his breath in a hiss. “Let me bottom line this: I can’t, without you. Not any of it. I’m tired of pretending it’s any other way.” His mouth was a hard line, but his eyes were pleading, begging Cas to understand.

“Dean…” Cas trailed off, reaching out to where Deans hands dangled between his knees and cupping them in both of his. He watched Dean’s fingers clutch at his own like a lifeline.

“I’m sorry, I should have come back sooner.”

And at that Dean seemed to deflate, any of the fight that was still lingering drained out of him completely.

“It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t be sorry. It’s like you said, before. You left, but I never asked you to stay.” Dean’s eyes were locked on their joined hands too.

“You asked me now.”

Dean gave a mirthless snort, “About time.”

“Yeah,” Cas smiled softly, running his thumb over Dean’s knuckles, clean of the wounds he’d gathered in the fight at the barn.

Cas bit his lip. “I don’t think… I don’t think I ever told you how much I _wanted_ to stay, though. I always left because—well, because the world kept ending and there _was_ a lot to do, but also because… Because I didn’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“Cas,” Dean freed one of his hands and laid it against Cas’ cheek, his thumb sweeping the ridge of his cheekbone. The touch felt natural; he remembered a touch, just like this one, when he’d returned from the Empty the first time. Over the years, Cas had adjusted to Dean’s caresses, no longer thrown off balance the way he had been years ago by Dean’s remarkable generosity when it came to physical affection. It was the one thing he could count on from a man who struggled so intently with vocalizing his feelings.

“You never could’ve overstayed your welcome. The bunker, with me, it—that’s your home, too.”

Cas hummed and leaned into Dean’s touch. “Maybe we are a couple of dumbasses,” he commented with a small smile.

“What I’ve been saying for years,” Dean breathed. His hand still on Cas’ face, he leaned forward until their foreheads touched, breathing each other’s air.

They stayed like that for a while. It was the closest Cas had ever been to Dean’s face. Dean’s eyes were closed, but Cas kept his open, counting the freckles across Dean’s nose. Angel kisses, he remembered from some movie or another. He thought about leaning forward slightly more, of pressing his lips against the bridge of Dean’s nose, the curve of his cheek, the bow of his lip…

Dean pulled back, not quite meeting Cas’ eyes as he separated from him, pulling the covers back and sliding under the sheets. He laid on his side facing Cas, and when he’d settled in comfortably, he reached across the divide and took his hand.

Cas smiled and moved his chair closer, keeping his promise to watch over Dean until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, why aren't these two making out yet? I feel like old habits are hard to break, especially for these two, but they're making progress! Look at them using words and everything!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so much later than I had planned to post it, I'm sorry! I promise the next bit will come sooner. Please enjoy :)

They arrived back at the bunker the following evening, Miracle jumping happily from the backseat when they pulled up front and immediately chasing after a squirrel that skittered by.

Dean and Cas leaned against the Impala and watched Miracle play in the tall grass.

“It’s, uh. It’s probably not the best place for a dog to live,” Dean rubbed the back of his neck, looking slightly guilty.

Privately, Castiel thought that Dean’s care would be more than enough to make up for the unusual living situation. He smiled, bending to pick up a branch before tossing it into the brush. Miracle flew after it, barking and wagging his tail.

“He seems happy enough.”

They’d dropped Sam off at Eileen’s partway through their journey home, leaving Dean and Cas to finish the ride alone.

It felt different, riding in the passenger seat beside Dean, with no apocalypse on the horizon, no pressing task for Castiel to return to. He’d leaned into the leather of the seat and felt something like peace, like home. He understood why Dean loved his car so much. It had nothing to do with her being “badass” as Dean sometimes claimed, and everything to do with Dean being a deeply sentimental man. When everything was calm, Castiel could almost feel the memories the lingered within the small space.

They’d alternated between rock cassettes and the radio as they wove their way home. Dean had sung along to Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Taylor Swift alike, the windows rolled down and the countryside whipping by as Cas taped out the beat against the warm metal of Baby’s door, and Miracle snapped his teeth at the breeze. It was a bright day, but the happiness on Dean’s face had outshone the sun and Cas had stared unapologetically, basking in the warmth of Dean’s smile.

When they moved inside, the bunker felt quiet, and Castiel felt a strong pang of grief. For Jack, for the family they’d built. Even though Jack was alive and well, their family would never be the same again, would never again exist under the same roof as a tangible unit.

“It feels empty, without Jack,” he commented as they walked into the library.

Dean looked at him over his shoulder, then turned around.

“Hey,” he began softly. “Cas, I know I asked you to stay…”

Cas felt something in his chest contract, like a vice around his heart.

“But you know, if you want to go see Jack, that’s okay. I’m not gonna like, keep you prisoner here. I know he’s _God_ now, but he’s still your baby.”

“Ours,” Cas corrected, and his heart went from feeling squeezed to feeling impossibly full as Dean reddened and looked away but didn’t deny it. Castiel looked down, rapping his knuckles lightly on the wooden table before him. With a quick flutter in his heart, he noted the table’s new additions—his name, and their son’s name, carved right along the Winchester’s. “I will. Go see him sometimes... He has the powers of God, but there’s a part of him that’s still a child, that needs guidance. That needs me.”

“I know, Cas, I know. I uh, wish I could go with you.”

“You’ll see him again. I think we should be glad that you have some time between now and then,” Cas reached out and laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder and squeezed lightly.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Dean looked down at the hand resting on his shoulder and summoned up a smile. “Well, hey, if you’re sticking around, maybe you’ll actually get some use out of your room. The number of times I’ve dusted in there over the years, man.”

There was something tense in the way Dean said it that made Cas think he was biting his tongue, leaving something unsaid. He was reminded, not for the first time in the last 20 hours, that his deathbed confession had remained untouched, that while Dean had expressed his frustrations at Cas not coming back sooner, he’d not said a thing about the deal with the Empty, or the things Cas had said in those last moments.

Letting his hand fall from Dean’s shoulder, Castiel traced over the letters of his name emblazoned on the glossy wood tabletop.

“Why ‘Castiel’?” he asked suddenly. He could probably count on one hand the amount of times he’d heard Dean use his full name.

“Huh?” Dean sounded as if he’d been jolted from a wholly different realm of thought.

“On the table, why ‘Castiel’ instead of ‘Cas’?”

“Oh, uh,” Dean cleared his throat. “I dunno, just felt right, I guess. ‘S your name, how you introduced yourself, how I introduce you.” He dragged his bottom lip between his teeth, looking down at the name and avoiding Cas’ eyes.

Cas waited.

“It’s stupid,” Dean said eventually, glancing up only briefly. “After everything, I guess I just felt like I’d taken enough from you. Your family, your faith, your life. Didn’t want to take anything else away from you.”

The urge to reach across the small gulf between them and kiss the strained look off Dean’s face was even more powerful than the night before.

“You’ve never taken anything from me that I haven’t willingly given.”

Dean took a deep breath at that, blowing the air back out his mouth in a quick gust.

“It’s too much, too much to give. Too much to take.” Dean licked his lips, and kept his gaze turned downwards.

Cas forgot to breathe for a few quick beats, but the burst of activity in his mind compensated for this.

It was too much for Dean. That was his answer. Was that his answer?

Well, that shouldn’t be surprising. There were many times that he’d made it entirely clear to Dean, at least it had seemed, what his priority was, what the true center of his universe became the moment Dean’s soul had reached out to him in the pit. Metatron had taunted him with it years ago. _It was all about saving one human_ …but that was nothing that Cas himself hadn’t said directly to Dean’s face multiple times before that. That it was all for Dean, everything he had done. And Dean had never so much as acknowledged it. Perhaps it had always been too much.

After a few more brief moments in which it felt as if they were both waiting for the other to say something, Dean finally excused himself, mumbling something about putting his bags away.

Cas sat at the table, still examining the names on the table, all grouped together. A family.

Dean loved him, in his way, Cas was sure. And Cas wasn’t completely naïve. He knew that his presence sometimes had an affect on Dean. He could track it in a dozen different ways. His elevated pulse, the dilation of his pupils, the way his eyes gravitated to his mouth, his lingering touches, a subtle change in his hormones. And always, always, the ever-confusing pulses of longing that called out to him. It might have served as an unfair advantage, had it been anyone but Dean. But right from the beginning, Dean had proved determined to contradict every last one of those impulses. At first, Cas hadn’t understood that at all. He’d gravitated towards Dean because he could sense that Dean drew some type of pleasure from his proximity, but then Dean would insist that he move further away. Castiel had assumed it to be a simple human quirk that he’d never quite understand, and had chalked up his own desire to be near Dean as a response to Dean’s desire. As Cas learned more about Dean, over years and years, he understood what was driving Dean’s actions. He didn’t _want_ to feel those things for Cas. Mentally, he’d decided not to, even if his emotions and body didn’t quite fall in line. Was it his upbringing, his self-hatred that drove that decision? A desperate part of Cas almost hoped that was the case, as terrible as the thought made him feel. The alternative, the thing that Castiel was terrified of facing, was that Dean could never accept those feelings for Castiel, because of what Castiel _was_. At best, a useful tool in the Winchester arsenal. At worst, a monster. The type of thing Dean had hunted since he was a child. Ancient and cold and with enough innocent blood on his hands to fill the Nile. An angel, a thing Dean hated, but a grotesquely distorted one too, broken in every conceivable way.

He blocked off that chain of thought. It was nothing new; all these thoughts were things he had come to terms with ages ago. And he’d told Dean what he’d told him knowing that Dean couldn’t return his feelings, not in word or action, not expecting anything. So this wasn’t a blow, he told himself. This was just status quo.

And it was better than it had been in the past. Even if they weren’t quite what Cas would wish in the privacy of his heart (less private now that Dean knew, but still), Dean still wanted him around. Still seemed comfortable with him, for the most part. It was good, and it was enough, and it was petty of Cas to act as if Dean’s love and affection, in whatever form they were offered, weren’t enough when they were more than he’d imagined possible.

+

As dusk settled in, Cas sat at the kitchen table while Dean made supper, filling him in on the new mechanics of heaven and the status of his friends and family up there. As he spoke, he watched the long lines of Dean’s body move with practiced ease around the kitchen, the beauty of his hands as they chopped and washed.

It all felt startlingly domestic, in contrast with the gruesome scene he’d walked into the previous night.

After dinner, they took Miracle for a walk, treading over gravel and dirt under the dim starlight, and Dean told him about a job he’d been offered at the fire department. To be perfectly honest, the thought of Dean rushing into burning buildings set Cas’ teeth on edge, but it sounded like a perfectly Dean thing to do—no matter the context, he had to be saving people.

“Do you ever think of doing something else? Something for yourself?” He asked.

Dean glanced at Cas and then away again.

“I dunno. Yeah, I guess. Maybe I just don’t know how, anymore.”

“Hmm,” Cas made a low noise of agreement. “It’s a common phenomenon. Soldiers returning from war and having no idea how to integrate back into a life of peace. So it was for the Achaeans, so it is today.”

“So what your saying is it’s pretty much hopeless.”

Cas felt a moment of guilt before glancing over to see Dean wearing a sly smile on his face. Cas nudged him gently in the ribs.

“Not hopeless. Just takes some time, and some support. Which you’ll have, if you want it.”

The walked quietly for another minute.

“You will too, you know,” Dean murmured softly. “Have support. You could hang up the blade for good.”

Cas hummed again. “I’m not sure. I’ve been a soldier since the dawn of time. Even in rebellion, I was still fighting, just for a different cause. I’m not sure I’m… built for anything else. Good for much else.” It was slightly more honest than Cas had intended, but the softness of Dean’s voice made it difficult to put up any defenses.

But Dean’s step faltered for a moment before he was tugged forward by Miracle.

“That’s bullshit, Cas. You know that’s bullshit, right?”

Cas raised his brows, looking over at Dean cautiously. “Umm… No?”

Dean huffed out a laugh, despite the frankly indignant look on his face.

“You’re a better friend than a fighter. And I’m not saying you’re not a hell of a fighter,” Dean cut Cas off before Cas could vocalize his own indignation. “You’re a major badass. Could kick my ass any day in a fair fight, juiced up or not. I’m just sayin’ that of all the things you’re “good for”, that doesn’t even crack the top ten for me.” Dean actually used air quotes, which would have struck Castiel as hilarious if he wasn’t so thoroughly touched by the things he was saying.

Castiel wasn’t at all sure how to respond to that, but Dean clearly read his silence as scepticism (which, admittedly, was part of it).

“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. No one has ever stood by me the way that you have, not even close—not even Sam.” Dean sounded almost surprised by that thought, but quickly continued before Cas could cut in. “You don’t pull any punches with me, which is good because I’m full of shit half the time, but you’re also actually _nice_ to me, which sounds fucking stupid to say, but it matters, man.” Dean watched the ground as he spoke, the stars, anywhere but at Cas, as if he might be able to get the words out if he could just treat it like a prayer in an empty room, in a grey forest.

“You’re a good person. You care about people, and you’ve always tried your best to do the right thing, to make a difference, to help people, even people who don’t fuckin’ deserve it. You’re the best father I’ve ever known; not to make it weird, but if my old man had been more like how you are with Jack, you wouldn’t have needed to clean up my liver so many damn times.” Dean tried to smile as he said that, but it looked pained. He continued regardless. “You’re determined as all hell. You never give up, even when everything in the universe is telling you to.”

Dean seemed to be on a roll now, speaking more quickly.

“You’re a huge nerd but you’re also like the ultimate rebel, and I don’t know anyone else who can pull off that blend as well as you can. You put up with all my crap, and it’s a whole lot of crap, and you’re still willing to sit through cowboy movies with me, even though I _know_ you secretly kind of hate them. You tell the best stories when we drink. Who else would tell me about a bunch of 3rd century priests chopping off their junk because Jesus fucking Christ himself was “misquoted”. You’re way funnier than you pretend to be, and don’t think for a second that you got me fooled with your whole Ariel “what’s a fire and why does it burn” schtick.”

Dean snapped his head towards Cas, as if just becoming conscious of the fact that he’d still been talking. He let out a slightly desperate sounding laugh.

“That has to be at least ten, right?”

It might as well have been a hundred. Cas didn’t respond immediately, going over Dean’s words in his mind, staring at Dean’s face in a slight daze. Cas could find something to argue against nearly every point Dean had made, but somehow, the sheer fact that Dean apparently thought those things, regardless of whether they were factual, overwhelmed his tendency towards self effacement.

Dean dragged a hand roughly over his mouth, letting out a sigh. He came to a stop, tugging gently at Miracle’s leash with one hand, and reaching the other out to rest on Cas’ shoulder, drawing him to a stop as well.

“You could spend the rest of my life hanging around the bunker, binging Netflix and stealing all the coffee and it wouldn’t make me _value_ _you_ any less. I’d…”

Dean trailed off, closing his eyes tight and clenching his jaw. The same internal struggle playing out across his face as the night before. Cas stayed silent, giving Dean a chance to gather himself. He could feel the conflict in him, the overwhelmed blur of emotions that must be all but suffocating to live inside.

Dean licked his lips and took a breath in, locking his eyes on Cas’. His face was set in determination, but there was something immensely vulnerable in his eyes as they flicked left to right, as if he could see into Cas’ mind if he looked hard enough.

“I’d still love you just as much.”

And to that, Cas had no response at all. Absurdly, the old impulse to fly away struck him immediately, like the instinctual panic of a startled bird. That made no sense, why would he want to leave Dean, especially when he was standing there saying things that Cas never expected to hear.

His next impulse was to ask him something inane like “Do you _love me_ love me?” like schoolchildren did in television shows.

But Cas already knew, abstractly, that Dean loved him. And now confirmation that he loved him, along with the decade old knowledge that Dean desired him, carnally. Love and lust should equal something obvious, like the most basic equation, but Castiel knew that for Dean, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

“Thank you.” It came out soft and sincere, and it wasn’t what he meant to say, although he had no idea what he should have said in its place.

Castiel didn’t know what his face looked like, but he could imagine it was somewhere between terrified and awestruck.

Thankfully, Dean either took pity on him or just couldn’t deal with the crushing weight of the situation any longer, and he let out a laugh, looking away.

Miracle whined quietly.

“I love you too,” Cas said quickly, suddenly realizing that that was the typical response, and that he’d inadvertently left Dean hanging. He felt that Dean might be on the brink of regretting saying anything and couldn’t let that happen.

“You already know that, I’ve told you that, and I mean it, and I wasn’t sure if you’d want to hear that again or if we should just ignore it.” That felt too rambling, but it was too late to reign it back.

Dean was back to looking astonishingly vulnerable for such a large man.

“Yeah, no I—I don’t want to ignore it. Um,” he swallowed. “Thank you, too.”

Cas opened his mouth and closed it, before opening it again. “You’re welcome.” For some reason, his response came out an octave above the gravel-low tenure of his usual speaking voice.

Dean smiled again, and this time when he laughed it wasn’t as harsh as it had been a moment ago. He looked genuinely happy, if a little overwhelmed and confused.

“Wow, we’re really bad at this,” he said, wiping his hand over his mouth.

Yes. Cas cracked a smile as well, and then found himself laughing, which for some reason made Dean laugh more, and then they just laughed for a long moment until Miracle barked, confused by all the noise, and jumped up against Dean’s side.

Dean pushed Miracle’s head down lightly.

“Let’s go back,” Dean said, a smile still playing on his lips and his eyes sparkling in the starlight.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Cas looking down with his hands in his pockets, going over the last ten minutes.

He licked his lips before breaking the silence.

“You’re only half right about my “Ariel schtick”, as you called it—sometimes I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The corner of his mouth rose as he peeked over at Dean, who grinned widely.

“Gotta keep you on your toes.”

“Our height difference isn’t quite enough for that,” Cas replied, and then immediately felt a nervous giddiness rush through his body. For over ten years he’d refrained from making innuendos, even when Dean tossed them directly at him, and now he was practically begging Dean Winchester to kiss him, out loud, to his face. He still had no idea if that was something Dean would want, or would let himself want.

Dean laughed, a slightly choked, nervous sound, and Cas could see the deep flush stretched over his cheeks, the tips of his ears.

They walked for only a second more before Dean came to a halt, and, like reacting to a magnetic pull, Cas did too.

At least now Dean looked as terrified as Cas had felt for the last several minutes. He licked his lips and locked his eyes on Cas’.

“One way to find out,” he said, and not a moment later, surged forward, catching Cas with his Miracle-laden hand on his waist and the other coming up to cup his jaw. He stopped with only the barest space between them, their noses brushing, Dean’s eyes fluttering shut, and Cas knew that Dean was giving him an out, a chance to back away, to tell him he didn’t mean it that way.

But there was suddenly no reason to deny it. Dean apparently wasn’t, not anymore. In a second, everything had changed, and Dean wanted Cas to kiss him, Cas could feel it in every part of his being, could feel it radiating off of Dean, and even though he’d never thought he’d be here, here had come.

Castiel sealed the space between them, pressing his lips against Dean’s and raising his hands to clutch at Dean’s jacket, pulling him firmly against him. Dean’s hand slid into his hair and the kiss was more than just a kiss, it was the sealing of a covenant, a joyful hymn, a whispered invocation. It was the dawn of a new day, and the close to a very old story. It was too much, and far too little.

Under the star-sequined Kansas sky, after an eon in which the universe might have died and been reborn for all that Castiel could tell, they parted, leaning against one another like they had in the motel, a day or a lifetime ago.

Castiel’s hand had found its way to Dean’s cheek, and it brushed away a tear that had fallen there. He didn’t worry. He could feel the soul-deep contentedness shining within Dean.

He tilted Dean head down, and laid gentle kisses against Dean’s closed eyelids, a blessing, a final Amen to complete this long-awaited prayer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, this chapter was so challenging for me. I'm not sure exactly why, but I will say that it is not at all where I planned for it to go--I wanted to delay the actual "getting together" thing, but I couldn't do it in a way that wasn't completely contrived. These two just want to be together, damnit! But now at least we can navigate the rest of this little story from a place of happy understanding and love. I loved getting to show Cas so much love this chapter, I hope you liked it too!


End file.
